


Live Unbruised

by lady_ragnell



Series: Post-s3 Headcanon [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin dreams about telling the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** In dream sequences, references to character death and suicide.
> 
> Title from the Mumford & Sons song "Sigh No More."

_”Which one of you was it?”_

 _“It was me,” Merlin says this time, even though he sees Arthur’s hand on his sword hilt, sees him draw it and swing it, justice and the blade swift. Will steps in the way of the sword and blood spurts at his neck. Kanen’s crossbow bolt hits Arthur square in the chest. They both crumple._

 _Morgana saves his life, swears Gwen to secrecy, and brings him back to Camelot._

 _Arthur and Will burn on the same pyre._  
*  
Merlin wakes gasping in the predawn light, and calms his breath and his heart so he doesn’t wake Gaius. The physician sleeps little enough as it is these days. Tending Uther alone is taking much of his time, and the king isn’t the only one Morgana harmed while she was on the throne. Instead of moving from his bed, Merlin goes through every spell for fire that he knows until his breath comes normally again.

It’s cold. Summer was ending when they defeated Morgana and Morgause, and the autumn chill winds through the halls, seeping through the cracks left when Morgana screamed the palace down around them.

So, for once, he gets up early, and uses magic to muffle his footfalls while he encourages Gaius’s fire, banked for the night, into new life. Gaius stirs as dawn breaks, while Merlin is puzzling his way through making porridge. “What are you doing awake this early?” he asks when Merlin waves at him.

“Thought Arthur might appreciate the fire blazing when he wakes up, for once.” Gaius doesn’t need to worry about him along with everyone else.

Gaius watches him while he manages breakfast that won’t poison him and gulps it down. “You look tired,” Gaius says while Merlin ties his neckerchief on. “If you need me to make you something, Merlin …”

“I’m fine, Gaius. We’re all just busy.” Merlin leaves before he has to answer any more questions, and gets to Arthur’s room with just enough time to bring the fire to life before he has to go get breakfast. Arthur’s stirring when he comes back, tray loaded heavy. They send up more from the kitchens for Arthur, these days, while he’s keeping Camelot together and scouting Cenred’s kingdom as well. “Morning, Arthur,” he says quietly, setting it out.

“What, nothing clever to say this morning?”

It’s somewhat disappointing to remember that Arthur _wakes up_ a prat. “Thought I might try to start a day without getting something chucked at me, sire.” _I watched you die last night, all because I told the truth._

“A novel experience for both of us, I’m sure.”

In a few minutes, someone will come knock on the door, and Arthur will go out to fix whatever mistakes Uther made while he was trying to be king yesterday. Merlin makes the morning as easy as he can for Arthur, since it’s often the only peace he gets. It feels as if they should be doing more than they are, hunting Morgana down or finding a cure for Uther, but instead there’s only this unease while they rebuild and try not to wonder what comes next.  
*  
 _”You have caused so much suffering and pain. I will put an end to that.”_

 _“This is what Morgause wanted you to do, Arthur,” he says this time. “Shouldn’t you think about why that is?” He can feel Gaius’s stern look, but can’t look away from Arthur’s shaking shoulders, the barely-hidden fear on Uther’s face._

 _“Does it matter? He killed my mother! You saw her, you heard what he did to her.”_

 _“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can just kill your father!” Arthur doesn’t answer, and Merlin can’t make himself step forward and take the sword. “Arthur, please--Arthur--”_

 _The sword is through Uther’s throat before Merlin can think of anything more to say._

 _Arthur takes the kingdom, and brings magic back to it. Morgana and Merlin thrive with Morgause and others to teach them openly, hardly caring that Arthur will hardly speak to them anymore. Arthur goes to kill a dangerous beast alone when he’s thirty and doesn’t come back alive. Merlin will never say aloud that he thinks he did it on purpose._  
*  
Merlin wakes just past midnight and just barely manages to keep his silence, escaping to the battlement where he and Arthur have stood so often as soon as he trusts his magic not to lash out in his leftover grief. These are nightmares, he reminds himself. Not true dreaming. Perhaps Arthur wouldn’t have lost himself in guilt if Merlin hadn’t stopped him--but then, doesn’t that make it worse? If he’d told the truth, perhaps things would be perfect now. Or perhaps Arthur wouldn’t forgive Merlin for having magic anyway.

He stays on the battlement for an hour, staring off the edge and carefully thinking of nothing at all. When he goes back to his room, Gaius is awake. “Is there a problem?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” says Merlin. “Sorry I woke you.” He wants to go to Arthur and apologize for something that never happened and never will happen, but he just shrugs instead and shuts himself back in his room, ignoring Gaius’s careful scrutiny.

He’s acting like Morgana used to, he realizes in the morning, waking distressed from dreams and looking more tired by the day. No wonder Gwen so troubled whenever he sees her these days, and no wonder Gaius is watching him so carefully. Merlin makes up nightmares about Morgana screaming the whole of Camelot down over breakfast, and Gaius smiles at him sadly but looks less worried. Better than telling him the truth--Gaius is the one always encouraging him to lie, after all.

Arthur’s awake when he gets there. “You know, Merlin, you’re meant to be here with my breakfast when I wake,” he points out. “I shouldn’t have to wait for you.”

“You’re awake early,” retorts Merlin, and goes about setting breakfast out for him. “Are you going on patrol today?”

“No, Leon’s leading it.” He pauses. “Taking a few of the new knights with him.” Merlin smiles at him, more grateful than he wants to admit that Arthur is standing by his common knights. He only sends them on patrol when his father is spending a day confined to quarters while Gaius plies him with new concoctions that will never do anything about the betrayal that broke him, but it’s a start. “I have other things to occupy me. And so do you. My stables are in a deplorable state.”

Merlin rolls his eyes, as he’s meant to, and keeps up his side of the bickering as well as he can while Arthur saddles him with chores. Most days Merlin follows close at Arthur’s heels, as a comfort to both of them (well, he hopes it’s to both of them), but some days Arthur seems to want his privacy. Those are the days when he saddles Merlin with chores that he can only finish by using magic unless he wants to be up all night.

“And get Gaius to give you a sleeping draught tonight, Merlin,” Arthur says at the end of a spiel of orders, and Merlin jerks to look at him. “You’re making me tired just looking at you.”

Merlin very carefully doesn’t ask if Arthur would still be taking care of him if Merlin had ever told him the truth.  
*  
 _”Morgana, you’re the source of the enchantment,” he says this time. “Unless we stop it, Morgause will kill Uther.” She doesn’t react. “And Arthur, and Gwen, and everyone else here in Camelot.”_

 _Her lip starts to tremble. “I didn’t--she didn’t--”_

 _“I know, I know. But we have to fix it. We have to make it better.”_

 _“But how? Merlin, how do you know this?”_

 _“I’ll explain that later, but we’ve got to stop it now. Morgana, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry …”_

 _She understands, and clutches his arm. “No, Merlin, please,_ please _.”_

 _“We can try to come up with another solution, but there isn’t much time. My lady, I’m--”_

 _“No, I understand.”_

 _Morgana is wrestling a sword from his grip when Morgause appears, and they convince her to lift the spell. He tells Morgana the whole truth later, and she forgives him. She tells Arthur of her magic, reluctantly, and when he accepts it, Merlin tells him the truth as well. It’s the only dream he’s had where it might have ended happily._  
*  
“You look like you’re thinking hard about something,” says Arthur.

At least Merlin can tell the truth about this. “I had a dream last night that Morgana never left us. It just makes me wish ...”

“I wish I knew what had happened to her. Why she _did_ that.” Arthur never says this sort of thing during the day. It’s an honor that Merlin hears it all, and a sign of how much Arthur trusts him. It’s why he hasn’t confessed yet, at least in part. Something would change, and even if Arthur wouldn’t have him executed, he would lose these quiet moments.

Merlin looks at Arthur sprawled in the same chair as always. Wishes he could tell him why, and that part of it was his fault. Instead, he looks away. It’s easier to lie when he isn’t looking Arthur in the eye. “She wasn’t herself, after she came back. We don’t know what happened to her in that year. What they told her.” That much is true, at least. But she was undoubtedly more willing to believe it after Merlin tried to kill her.

He did it for Arthur, but he’s assured himself of that so many times now that it’s cold comfort. He does it all for Arthur, but destiny doesn’t look like something great and shining any longer. They’ve lost so many people along the way, and they’ll probably lose more. New ones have come along, true enough, but it’s hard to trust that they’ll stay alive and well.

“You noticed before I did, didn’t you?” asks Arthur, tone so neutral that there must be some emotion behind it. Not quite accusation, but something that makes Merlin shift, uncomfortable. “You were acting oddly with her after she came back.”

“I didn’t know exactly what it was, so I couldn’t mention it. You wouldn’t have believed me.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I always know when you’re lying, Merlin.”

Merlin laughs. “Of course, sire. I’m an open book, after all.”

Arthur goes quiet, and Merlin lets the moment pass. The silence stretches out until Merlin realizes that he’s just standing there staring, waiting for Arthur to drop him some crumb, and then he puts himself to work organizing something that doesn’t really need to be organized. “That’s enough, Merlin,” Arthur snaps after barely a minute. “You’re dismissed for the evening.”

There are nights when he would push, but this isn’t one of them. Merlin doesn’t ask about Arthur’s sudden change of mood and just nods before he leaves.  
*  
 _”So that means you can tell me.”_

 _“Fine,” says Merlin this time. “I’ll tell you. Gaius said I shouldn’t, and you’ve got enough to worry about, but--he told me, just before we left. The Dragonlord. Balinor. He’s my father.”_

 _“He’s--you never knew your father.”_

 _“I suppose they thought it would be safer for me, not to know, since your father …” He stops. Wishes he could tell Arthur that with all the other secrets in his childhood surely he could hold this one as well._

 _He doesn’t dare look at Arthur. “Does Balinor know? It might convince him to come with us.”_

 _“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I hope he’s not the kind of man who would stay away forever if he knew he had a son.”_

 _Merlin wants to say that Balinor would have wanted to train him in being a Dragonlord for the hopefully-distant day when he died, perhaps would have known how to handle his magic. And then he realizes that even in dreams where he tells the truth he’s still lying to Arthur._  
*  
The thing is, Merlin knows that his opportunity has passed. That there was a time--maybe it was an hour, maybe it was months--when Arthur knew him well enough that he wouldn’t have Merlin executed for his magic but before he would be upset at Merlin for lying to him for _years_. He thinks it might have been after Gedref, or maybe after the Questing Beast. The window had certainly closed by the time he told the lie he hates himself for more than any other and preserved Uther’s life (again).

There will be no perfect moment now. No matter if it happens when Merlin saves Arthur’s life, whether it’s before or after Uther dies, no matter if Uther himself realizes what a tyrant he is where magic is concerned and repeals the law before Merlin does it, Arthur will be hurt and angry. He’ll have every right to be.

And Merlin will tell the truth, because even though Arthur may hate him once all the stories are told (though he won’t have him executed; Merlin clings to that hope with everything he has. Even if Arthur won’t call him a friend, they mean enough to each other that Arthur probably won’t kill him), Merlin intends that someday he will not have a single secret from Arthur. He’ll say that it’s not a matter of not trusting Arthur to let him live. He’ll admit that his most paralyzing fear is Arthur hating him, blocking him out of the little moments of vulnerability that not even Gwen is allowed to see these days.

He doubts Arthur will believe him, but he’ll tell the truth nonetheless. He just needs to find the right moment to do it.

There is no right moment. But he’ll find the closest thing to one that he can.  
*  
 _”And where have you been all day?”_

 _“I … I was Dragoon the Great,” he says this time. “In disguise. I just managed to change back.” And he knows this is a bad time to say it, but it used to be that he saw opportunities every second and now they’re so rare and he’s worried eventually there will come a time when there are no opportunities at all._

 _Arthur roars at him for joking around, tosses him in the dungeons in a fit of pique, and comes to him that night asking him for the details. Merlin gives them, and the next day he disappears from the courtyard before they can force him on the pyre._

 _Morgana laughs._  
*  
Arthur finds him on the battlement when Merlin’s hands are white-knuckled from the cold and from his grip on the stone. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“I could ask the same of you, sire,” Merlin returns with none of the teasing tone he wishes he could muster. And then, because he can give this much honesty, at least: “Bad dreams.”

He half-expects Arthur to laugh and call him a girl, but instead he just leans next to Merlin, looking out over the empty courtyard. “At least you can fall asleep.”

“I’ll bring a draught from Gaius tomorrow. You shouldn’t be out here in the cold, though. You’ll catch a chill.” Merlin often thinks that he wants Arthur to act more like a friend, or an equal, but he always forgets how discomfiting it is when Arthur does so. It makes it so easy to imagine telling him everything.

“You’re more likely to catch a chill than I am. And if you are unsubtly trying to send me away, I will remind you that I am the Crown Prince and this is my castle.”

“I would do no such thing, sire.”

They stand there in silence for a while. “Go back to bed, Merlin, you’re shivering,” Arthur says finally. “And you have to be up early.”

“So do you,” Merlin points out, mostly to be contrary. The dream, the curl of Arthur’s lip when he realized the extent of Merlin’s betrayal, is starting to fade. He could probably sleep again, but hard as this moment with Arthur is, he doesn’t want it to end. Times like this feel precious now, fleeting, and he doesn’t quite know why. Maybe because he knows there’s a time limit on it.

“Then we’ll both go to bed.” Arthur hesitates, like he has something more to say. “I hope you don’t have any more nightmares.”

“I hope you get to sleep.” Merlin backs away, ceding the space, and then stops, overcome with the sudden desire to just _say it_. “Arthur--” he starts, and stops, because Arthur already looks overburdened, and Merlin can’t bear to see bare hatred on Arthur’s face twice in one night, even if one was just a dream. “Sweet dreams,” he stammers at last.

He thinks he hears Arthur sigh as he walks away.  
*  
 _”I hope you get to sleep.” Arthur’s non-reaction is the same, but this time Merlin decides he’s had enough and he has to say it. He’s so tired, and if he’s executed, at least he can rest. This time, he says “Arthur--I. I’m a sorcerer. I don’t want to hurt you, or anyone, I never would, but you have to know. We have a destiny, apparently.”_

 _The silence stretches, and wavers, and finally Arthur speaks._

 _“Jump,” he says, patting the battlement, “so I don’t have to execute you.”_

 _or_

 _“A sorcerer--Merlin, what?” And he shouts and there are explanations, but he accepts it in the end and thanks Merlin and destiny unfurls glorious before them._

 _or_

 _“I know. But thank you for finally telling me.”_  
*  
Merlin wakes up.


	2. Sigh No More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur may not be able to help Merlin, but he can at least keep him company for a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** References to suicide.
> 
> A requested follow-up fic, from Arthur's POV (treated as another chapter because this is the only one that does require another to be read first).

Merlin is out on the battlement again, staring off the edge without seeing anything. Staring at the ground below. Arthur waits in the shadows, unwilling to interrupt his thoughts quite yet, but unwilling to go as well. Merlin is out here nearly every night that Arthur can’t force himself to sleep, staring in just this way, and Arthur isn’t fool enough to think they sleep the same nights. He also isn’t fool enough not to recognize the way Merlin’s gaze has moved to the stone where his hand is resting, though it makes him sick to think Merlin would even consider--

Arthur is moving forward before he makes the decision consciously, and Merlin jumps at the movement, his body turning before his eyes do-- _no, Merlin, nothing can be that bad, you_ idiot--and all of him tensing further when he sees Arthur. Once, he would have relaxed. “I thought I told you to get a sleeping draught,” Arthur calls over the space between them.

Merlin’s roll of the eyes could almost convince someone who didn’t know better that nothing’s wrong. “And I suppose you’d like me to sleep through bringing you your breakfast, then?”

“You do that anyway, you may as well get some rest out of it.” Arthur walks up to stand next to Merlin at the battlement again, even though each time he does the silences seem to get worse and worse. If he can’t make Merlin tell him what the matter is, at least he can keep vigil with him. “You were having nightmares again,” he offers, since he knows that much at least. “What do you dream about?”

Merlin hugs himself and takes a step back from the edge of the battlement. Arthur tries not to show his relief. “Things I could have done differently. So things wouldn’t have ended this way.”

Arthur snorts. “What _you_ could have done?” He knows it’s the wrong thing to say before he’s even finished speaking, by the way Merlin’s mouth tightens up and his gaze goes back to the stones of the courtyard. “Nothing that happened was your responsibility.”

“It doesn’t mean I couldn’t have done anything, changed anything.” Merlin meets his eyes for the first time. “You said that I noticed something about Morgana. What if--what if I’d told?” He shakes his head, knowing as well as Arthur does that even if Arthur had believed him, Uther wouldn’t have. “Or what if I’d seen her going down that path from the start, and talked to her as a friend should instead of--instead of--”

“This is useless, Merlin.” Arthur clasps his shoulder. “You can’t change the past, and you’ll drive yourself mad if you try.” Merlin shakes his head. “Morgana--she started practicing magic, at some point, and fell in with Morgause. You couldn’t have stopped that, I know well how stubborn she is.”

Merlin’s voice is hoarse when he answers. “It wasn’t the magic.” Arthur starts, tries not to stare. That might be the most honesty he’s had from Merlin in weeks, if not months, even if it’s on the one subject Merlin should know better than to bring up. Merlin looks away before he can answer that. “And … I don’t know. I wish she hadn’t felt like she needed to go to Morgause.”

That’s one of Arthur’s regrets as well, though he keeps it well-buried most of the time. Morgana was his _sister_ , by blood now as well as by choice. Surely she could have come to him, instead of blaming him for his father’s dishonesty. Surely, if she was unhappy before she disappeared, she could have at least told Guinevere? But then, he can’t blame her for her inability to talk to Gwen, when he was taking Gwen’s time. “It’s useless wasting time on regrets.”

“There are so many things I could have done differently,” whispers Merlin, like he expects Arthur not to hear, and turns away from Arthur’s hand on his shoulder to look at the courtyard again.

Once again, Arthur is not a fool. He knows that for every protestation Merlin makes that he’s an open book, that he has no secrets at all, there’s a look or an event or an unexplained coincidence that proves the opposite. Merlin’s been in the middle of too many inexplicable events for Arthur to ever believe Merlin as unimportant as they both pretend. “There are things I would change as well,” he says, as carefully as he can. “I would have told Morgana long ago how much I care for her, if it would have kept her with us. I’m sure there are a lot of things I would change, but I didn’t do them, and we’ve just got to make the best of the results of the mistakes we’ve made.” A skill his father still hasn’t learned, but Arthur shoves that thought away.

“What’s happened … it’s not the result of your mistakes, Arthur.”

“But it is of yours?” Arthur rolls his eyes, but he recognizes the tone of Merlin’s voice, after as many years as they’ve been together. This is Merlin saying something he’s meant to take seriously. He can’t pay much attention to that, though, when Merlin is wrapping tighter around himself, shivering and staring out over the courtyard again.

He doesn’t know how to coax Merlin back to life, certainly can’t take away his nightmares, and he can’t even begin to try if Merlin doesn’t trust him--and Merlin doesn’t. He may not know exactly what’s brought Merlin to this point, but he does know that he’ll never be trusted with the answer to that question, and that Merlin will never acknowledge he’s even thought of it. Maybe not even to himself. It makes Arthur want to shake him, to take him on the training field and beat him until he breaks and admits _something_ , but he knows it won’t do any good. If Merlin doesn’t trust him after this long it’s unlikely he ever will.

“You should be in bed,” says Merlin, the same way he has at some point every night Arthur’s come to watch over him.

“So should you,” Arthur answers by rote. “You’ve got to bring my breakfast in the morning, after all. Can’t have you oversleeping after you finally get yourself to bed.”

“I’ll probably still be awake.”

Arthur can rebuild a city that his sister (his _sister_ ) ripped apart. He can make commoners knights and steel himself against his ailing father’s anger to keep them knighted. He can kiss a serving girl where all the world can see. The one thing he can’t do, it seems, is to fix his manservant, to stop whatever it is that’s hurting him so. “Go. Try to sleep. And if you can’t, read a book or something. You’ll catch a chill up here, with autumn coming. In fact, you probably shouldn’t come out here again until spring.” Because Arthur is just beginning to sleep better again, and he can’t stand the thought that the night it all gets to be too much at last might be a night when he’s actually sleeping.

Merlin shakes his head, but his expression is a little lighter. “Yes, sire. Are you going to bed as well?”

He won’t sleep, but he’s asking Merlin to make a sacrifice of sorts now, to go back to nightmares that have been bothering him for weeks. He can make a sacrifice himself, and spend the night staring at his walls and not wandering the castle. It won’t be the last night they have a discussion like this, after all. “Yes, fine, you ninny, I’m going to bed.”

They walk inside together.


End file.
